Tuesday, December 6, 2016

The Guest (2014)(Minor Spoilers Review)

This review contains MINOR spoilers

The Story- Laura Peterson (Sheila Kelley) receives an unexpected visit, when
David (Dan Stevens) shows up on her doorstep one day. David introduces
himself as a former soldier, and a friend of Laura’s son, Caleb. Caleb
was killed in action, but David’s presence brings comfort, as he shares
Caleb’s messages and final words. At first, David is reluctant to accept
the invitation to stay with the Peterson family, but eventually he
accepts the offer, and Laura allows David to sleep in Caleb’s old room.

Laura’s
husband, Spencer (Leland Orser) and her teenage son, Luke (Brendan
Meyer) quickly embrace David, as Spencer confides in and vents to David
about his troubles at work, and David teaches Luke to stand up for
himself as a big brother figure. For Laura, Spencer, and Luke, David is a
breath of fresh air, but Laura and Spencer’s twenty year old daughter,
Anna (Maika Monroe) refuses to buy into David’s goodwill mission.

Anna
takes matters into her own hands, when she quietly decides to dig up
more information on David. Meanwhile, David’s erratic behavior and his
nasty mean streak are on full display, and at first, David’s actions are
seemingly noble. A group of bullies torment and harass Luke, so David
takes matters into his own hands. Anna’s friend, Kristen (Tabatha Shaun)
has a tense run-in with her pushy ex-boyfriend, but David steps in to
manhandle him.

David’s peculiar behavior raises more red flags,
and unbeknownst to the Peterson family, a potentially fatal collision
course threatens their lives, when Major Richard Carver (Lance Reddick),
a man from David’s past, and a group of armed men arrive at the
Peterson’s home. Laura, Spencer, Luke, Anna, her boyfriend, Zeke (Chase
Williamson), her friend, Craig (Joel David Moore), and Kristen are all
caught in the crossfire, as the mystery surrounding David unravels. Is
David a misunderstood knight in shining armor? Or, is David hiding a
shocking secret?

Review- The Petersons are a broken
family. Laura is devastated over Caleb’s death, Luke is a target for a
group of pesky bullies, and he’s an outcast at school. Spencer is an
alcoholic, and he’s frustrated with his situation at work, and Anna is
stuck in a crossroads dilemma. In the early stages of the movie, you
might get the impression Anna is stuck in the rebellious teenager phase.
She wants to have a beer before she turns twenty-one, and she chooses
to date the sketchy boyfriend against her parent’s wishes. But as the
story progresses, you’ll clearly see that’s not the case with Anna. She
works a hard job, she’s saving money for college, she loves her family,
and she’ll do anything to protect her brother. Anna has a lot of heart,
and Monroe really nails the character with a solid performance.

David
is charismatic and charming, with a soft southern accent, so of course
you WANT to believe he’s the one to fill Caleb’s void, right? Dan
Stevens knocks it out of the park with a convincing and good performance
as David. He is the driving force behind the conflict surrounding the
character. You want to believe David is this good guy, who showed up on
the Peterson’s doorstep to lend a helping hand in their time of need.
After all, David single-handedly eliminates the group of bullies during
the fight at the bar, he steps in to stop Kristen’s ex-boyfriend after
he refuses to take no for an answer, and he steps in to save Luke from
expulsion after he gets into a fight with one of the bullies at school.

The Guest is a hard-hitting, bloody, and brutal action horror-thriller.
The soundtrack is excellent, The Guest has an undeniable 80’s nostalgic
vibe to it, and The Guest is more than a run-of-the-mill bloodbath, with
an ordinary screenplay. There’s a good balance between the crisis
within The Peterson Family, the thrilling and tense action sequences,
the question marks surrounding David, and The Guest features characters
with real depth, and they’re characters you can actually care about.

The
slow burn approach to carefully and slowly unravel all the details in
David’s mysterious past really works to set up an intriguing guessing
game for David’s motives, because everything is not 100% clear until the
tail end of the film. Stevens’ presence brings a natural cool factor to
certain scenes (the events leading up to the big brawl at the bar,
David giving Anna a little lecture after the party, etc.) throughout the
movie, and the cliffhanger will surely annoy some people with
complaints of absurdity, but I have to believe The Guest is on its way
to earning a strong and indisputable reputation as a genuine cult
classic with more time.